Pubdate: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 Source: Rocky Mountain News (CO) Contact: http://insidedenver.com/news/ BUCKLEY'S SUMMER OF ERRORS The secretary of state's sins of omission are becoming increasingly notorious: Twice in recent weeks, Vikki Buckley's office has failed to certify signatures for statewide initiatives, putting them on the Nov. 3 ballot by default. Such incompetence is a scandal, to be sure, but at least it doesn't obstruct the petition process itself -- which in Colorado is a basic constitutional right. Far worse would be official incompetence that penalized the citizen petitioners themselves. Now come backers of a medical marijuana initiative to claim that Buckley's office has succumbed to this more dangerous variety of incompetence, too. Specifically, they argue that her office, using a sample of 4,482 signatures, undercounted the number of valid signatures on their petitions and that a proper sample count would have required her to go on to check every single signature, according to her own procedures. A hearing on the medical marijuana claim will occur Friday in Denver District Court. Unfortunately, at this late date it would be unfair for a judge to require a full signature count, even if the court concluded that petitioners are correct and that Buckley's office miscounted the sample. A comprehensive count, after all, would take precious time away from the campaign; and this is one issue on which voters really do need to hear both sides' arguments. Of course, the alternative to a full count is only slightly more palatable: put yet another initiative on the ballot that technically may not qualify. But as we suggested above, if government is going to bungle in reviewing petition signatures, those mistakes shouldn't penalize petitioners who conscientiously uphold their part of the bargain. Perhaps we sound as if we're expecting Buckley's office to be overruled Friday. If so, it's only because of recent, sobering experience. Not only has the secretary of state put two initiatives on the ballot by default, but earlier this summer she threw Senate President Tom Norton off the GOP primary ballot in the governor's race on the basis that he hadn't submitted enough valid signatures, too. As it happened, he had submitted more than enough -- and the secretary herself was forced to admit this at a hearing after Norton appealed. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Norton's treatment was the manner in which his campaign was apparently kept in the dark regarding what had been done wrong. Norton said at the time, for example, that he was "baffled" by a lack of information from Buckley's office as to why he was tossed off the primary ballot, pointing out that it was difficult to dispute a problem "if we don't know what she thinks is wrong." Meanwhile, his campaign manager, J.J. Ament, complained that Buckley had failed to return his repeated phone calls seeking information about the petitions. Although Norton prevailed, the incident set the tone for what has become a summer of errors by the secretary of state's office. Let's hope that office hasn't made yet another one. - --- Checked-by: Patrick Henry